A Johns Hopkins-led study of outcomes among 1,200 people with implanted defibrillators—devices intended to prevent sudden cardiac death from abnormal heart rhythms—shows that within a few years of implantation, one in ...

Two studies in the July 21 issue of JAMA find that use of interventions such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillators by bystanders and first responders have increased and were associated with ...

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Would you know what to do if you see someone collapse, not breathing—a loved one at home, a co-worker at the office, a stranger on the street? Far too many Americans die of cardiac arrest, and now a major new report urges ...

A team of Swedish researchers finds that early cardiopulmonary resuscitation more than doubles the chance of survival for patients suffering out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The percentage of patients who receive life-saving ...

Although body-cooling has long been a standard of care in treating adults after heart attacks, a recently published multi-center study has concluded that the same procedure—known as "therapeutic hypothermia"—does not ...

Cardiac arrest strikes almost 600,000 people each year, killing the vast majority of those individuals, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Every year in the U.S., approximately 395,000 cases of cardiac arrest ...

Heart attack patients age 65 and older who have reduced heart function might still benefit from implanted defibrillators, according to a Duke Medicine study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. But ...

New research presented at this year's Euroanaesthesia shows that use of public access defibrillation on people suffering cardiac arrest is associated with a large increase in chances of survival. However, despite the great ...

Cardiac arrest, (also known as cardiopulmonary arrest or circulatory arrest) is the cessation of normal circulation of the blood due to failure of the heart to contract effectively. Medical personnel can refer to an unexpected cardiac arrest as a sudden cardiac arrest or SCA.

A cardiac arrest is different from (but may be caused by) a heart attack, where blood flow to the muscle of the heart is impaired.

Arrested blood circulation prevents delivery of oxygen to the body. Lack of oxygen to the brain causes loss of consciousness, which then results in abnormal or absent breathing. Brain injury is likely if cardiac arrest goes untreated for more than five minutes. For the best chance of survival and neurological recovery, immediate and decisive treatment is imperative.

Cardiac arrest is a medical emergency that, in certain situations, is potentially reversible if treated early. When unexpected cardiac arrest leads to death this is called sudden cardiac death (SCD). The treatment for cardiac arrest is cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to provide circulatory support, followed by defibrillation if a shockable rhythm is present. If a shockable rhythm is not present after CPR and other interventions, clinical death is inevitable.

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